Horizontal Differentiation and the survival of Train and Coach modes in medium range passenger transport, a welfare analysis comprising economies of scope and scale

The Portuguese transport system as a whole suffers from the dominance of personal transportation, this being generally less efficient. Coaches and trains struggle to stay in the business. This model explains the markets’ performance beyond price differentials, bundling the transport modes’ appeal in one index for each. The differentiated transport cost approach accounts for product differentiation, economies of scope accruing to the consumer, and allows for economies of scale, in the form of fixed costs, to be weighted in, as well as tax policies towards motoring. It goes further by building a general welfare function that permits all factors and competition regimes to be properly compared. These are a monopoly by cars, duopolies with cars and each of the public transports, and oligopolies with public transports either competing or colluding. Simulations are carried out, and discussed in light of swings in market share and changes in welfare, with a reasonable claim to plausibility. Both public transports make the public better off by staying in the market, although the coaches’ contribution is more decisive. Trains results are weighted down by heavy fixed costs, and the far reaching coach network of destinations offers the second best service (behind that of cars). Collusion in the public transports is a price worth paying, when compared with the car monopoly emerging from bankrupt operators.Horizontal Differentiation, Intermodal choice, Oligopoly, Economies of Scope, Economies of Scale, Regulation

Beyond public transports: The portuguese environmental disclosure in the public transports sector

Even though throughout the years there has been a growth in the society’s mindset concerning environmental and social issues, it is still a field with several gaps and which severely lacks legislation. Several studies have already showed that by increasing legislation, there may be an increase on the amount of the companies’ environmental disclosures. Therefore, in order to regulate and increase the environmental disclosures in Europe, the European Union issued a Recommendation for its Member-States which was transposed to Portugal as an accounting standard – DC29 (Environmental Matters) - which should’ve been followed by the companies. The purpose of this research was to analyse how the environmental reporting practices have evolved in the Portuguese Public Transports sector, and whether it was influenced, or not, by the issuing of the DC29 Accounting Standard (And from 2010 onwards, the NCRF26). The public transports sector is currently one of the most pollutant sectors of the European Union. This thesis was based on content analysis of the Annual Accounts and Sustainability Reports of four of the biggest companies of the Portuguese Public Transports sector. Findings seemed to indicate that, even though the companies are not disclosing accordingly to the standard, the quantity of disclosure did increase, and the quality also evolved into more comparable, and more objective information.Apesar de ao longo dos últimos anos ter existido uma clara mudança de pensamento relacionada com aspectos ambientais e sociais, este é ainda um tema com várias falhas, sendo de realçar a falta de legislação. Vários estudos académicos mostraram uma relação entre o aumento da legislação existente e o da divulgação ambiental das empresas. Assim, de modo a regular e aumentar a divulgação ambiental na Europa, a União Europeia emitiu uma recomendação para os seus Estados-membros que foi transposta para Portugal na forma de Directriz Contabilística (DC 29 - Matérias Ambientais), que deveria ter sido seguida pelas empresas nas suas Demonstrações Financeiras. O objectivo desta tese é o de analisar o desenvolvimento das práticas de divulgação ambiental no sector dos transportes públicos, e se este foi ou não, influenciado pela publicação da DC 29, sendo que este é, neste momento, um dos sectores mais poluentes da União Europeia. Esta tese foi elaborada com base na análise de conteúdo dos Relatórios Anuais, de Contas e de Sustentabilidade, de quatro das maiores empresas portuguesas de Transportes Públicos. Os resultados revelaram que, apesar de as empresas não estarem a divulgar as suas matérias ambientais de acordo com o que está explícito na DC 29 (e a partir de 2010 na NCRF 26), a quantidade da divulgação de facto aumentou, a sua qualidade evoluiu positivamente e as partes interessadas passaram a ter acesso a uma informação mais comparável e mais objectiva

The Optimization of Microbus-Based Public Transportation Facilities in Jayapura City

Public transport services will work well if there is a balance between supply and demand. The research aimed to analyze the performance and the needs for the number of public transportation facilities based on the microbuses in Jayapura City. The types of the public transports, which would be discussed, were the microbuses which operated in 12 routes of the total routes of 26 in Jayapura city; those were B1, B2, B3, B4, J1, J2, K, I1, E, G, IA and I. The analyses of the performance and the demand for number of public transports were analyzed based on the load factor and the break event in accordance with the value of the vehicles operating costs (BOK) in setting tariffs. The research results indicated that the standard performance value of the public transport route code of K, I1, G, IA were categorized as less, while the routes of B1, B2, B3, B4, J1, J2, E and IB were categorized as medium. The microbuses demand was only 50% of the total microbuses now operating in Jayapura city

General scores for accessibility and inequality measures in urban areas

In the last decades, the acceleration of urban growth has led to an unprecedented level of urban interactions and interdependence. This situation calls for a significant effort among the scientific community to come up with engaging and meaningful visualizations and accessible scenario simulation engines. The present paper gives a contribution in this direction by providing general methods to evaluate accessibility in cities based on public transportation data. Through the notion of isochrones, the accessibility quantities proposed measure the performance of transport systems at connecting places and people in urban systems. Then we introduce scores rank cities according to their overall accessibility. We highlight significant inequalities in the distribution of these measures across the population, which are found to be strikingly similar across various urban environments. Our results are released through the interactive platform: www.citychrone.org, aimed at providing the community at large with a useful tool for awareness and decision-making

Transport networks’ accessibility and jobs’ accessibility: the significance of this correlation on the configuration of labor market and their consequences on social configuration in the city Bogotá

Several researches have been done about transport in Bogotá (Colombia) but no one has treated the impact of the transport network on the configuration of employment in the city. This research has two different aims which are directly interrelated. The definition of the effective size of labor market in the city is necessary to sheds light on the relation of transport accessibility and type of jobs or social classes within different zones in Bogotá. We support the first part of our study on the existing literature about the effective size of labor market. Under the specification of a conceptual model, we want to demonstrate the significant correlation (even causality) between accessibility and type of jobs in Bogotá. In order to capture the possible endogeneity among transport' accessibility and type of jobs we will use a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results will give us enough tools to know if transport network' accessibility, jobs' accessibility and type of jobs (or social classes) are large interrelated or not in the city of Bogotá. It will also let us to know if improvement of public network infrastructures traduced in a tacit enhancement on accessibility has a positive effect on incomes of inhabitants. We will understand the degree of correlation between accessibility to public transports and accessibility to jobs with respect to type of jobs and/or social class of labor force. Actually, first results show us that, there is a direct relationship between socio-economic class and time accessibility to jobs; the more accessibility of public transport system is in a zone of the city, the best is the social class and the better are the type of jobs of inhabitants so the highest will be the income. Nevertheless, it is observed (but not proved yet) that in some zones of the city where accessibility index is high, social class and types of jobs of inhabitants connected and living in these zones are not the best ones. Even so, we hope that with our methodology and data we could collect, we will be able to elucidate our research question.

Integrated Transport System Toward Sustainable Travel Behavior for Work Commuting Travel From Bekasi to Jakarta

Due to the inadequacy of public transport and high critical level of congestion in Jakarta Metropolitan Area, implementing sustainable transport for urban future transport improvement is necessary. Critical transport situation in Jakarta Metropolitan Area has pointed the importance of implementation integrated transport system to increase people accessibility. This study is conducted to identify strategic issues in integrated transport system at operational and policy levels toward sustainable mobility, transport equity, and door to door service. According to research aim, explanatory case study is used to build an understanding the current situation. The results indicate that integrated transport system is not fully implemented yet and it found a lot of missing links and barriers in integrated transport system attributes. Moreover, transportation planning at national to local levels is not synchronous which have impacted to the implementation of integrated transport

Co-location epidemic tracking on London public transports using low power mobile magnetometer

The public transports provide an ideal means to enable contagious diseases transmission. This paper introduces a novel idea to detect co-location of people in such environment using just the ubiquitous geomagnetic field sensor on the smart phone. Essentially, given that all passengers must share the same journey between at least two consecutive stations, we have a long window to match the user trajectory. Our idea was assessed over a painstakingly survey of over 150 kilometres of travelling distance, covering different parts of London, using the overground trains, the underground tubes and the buses

Applying Value Creation Framework to Offer Public Transport Improvement

Public Transportation in urban areas is expected to be main choice for people's mobility. The aim of this research is apply value creation framework based on S-D Logic and Trans Jogja from Yogyakarta and Värmlandstrafik AB Sweden are the case study. This research use direct observation and interview to the related person/ company as the primary data, and to support them use group discussion with the users. This research also use secondary data from some journals, reports, documentations, etc. From the analysis and discussion Värmlandstrafik AB is address the value creation service and opportunity more than Trans Jogja. From conclusion, the need of applying value creation framework in Trans Jogja is to offer public transport improvement as has been illustrated by Trans Jogja. Although the achievement of value creation opportunities are not as high as that achieved by Värmlandstrafik AB, but Trans Jogja should learn about what needs should be improved